


mortis

by mortalitasi



Series: stella splendens [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Tragedy, blood guts gore & realistic post-mortem grossness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 16:55:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12657606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: Five ways Cousland got closer to putting an end to Rendon Howe.Or: how she died at Highever, in all but the physical.





	mortis

**Author's Note:**

> my girl's a non-warden cousland, because that's just how i roll, and i got sick halfway through writing this and now just don't want to look at it anymore. also tw: rendon howe
> 
> love u all

**i.**

  
  
She wakes to a crushing, smothering weight.  
  
Blind and floundering, she writhes and panics as the terrible heaviness presses down all around her, never abating. The weak wisps of her strength aren’t enough to make whatever is pinning her down move. She must already be dead—where, other than some place created for torture, could she be, if she is not? She hears a sickening crack as she wrenches a wrist free of its confines, but there is no pain, and she will pay it no heed for now. Keep moving. Keep moving. Somehow, beneath the terror and the faceless drive of survival, she knows that if she stops, if she shuts her eyes—it will be over forever.  
  
It is dark, wherever she is, and blinking does nothing to dissolve the gloom. Her legs are trapped, her ribs being pulverized by the relentless pressure. She sucks in a deep breath, making herself small, and then lets it  go, allowing the air to fill her sternum and bloat her belly: it works, somewhat, and the thing lying atop her rolls away sluggishly. She pushes, arms straining, knuckles popping, and finally there is air and light and smoke.  
  
She breaks the surface with a choking gasp, coughing, retching onto the slippery shapes below her. When she is done and the swimming mess of her vision comes back to some sort of a focus, she stares dumbly down into the clouding eyes of the naked man lying beside her. His head has been split down the middle, and scattered, soft pieces of his brain are clinging to the bodies around him, and around her, like tufts of cotton. Slowly, she takes in the wooden edges of the cart surrounding her—and the horrible, heinous truth of where she is.  
  
This is no afterlife—it is a grave above the ground. A bed of corpses.  
  
The tears don’t come. She pulls herself, mechanically, limb-by-limb, from where she is sewn into the crosshatch of the dead. Her eyes burn from the acrid odor of urine and feces, the leavings of the bowels of those who have died and are already stiffening. There is no other thought in her mind—she must get out, stand on solid ground, not touching the cooling skin of people that she will recognize if her gaze lingers an instant too long.  
  
It is stupid. Anyone could have been watching, she realizes months later, looking back at her escape, though she had been too far gone to care; but no Howe guards come running, and no alarm is raised. It is only her, the distant crackling of the pyres burning in the ditch, and the stony silence of being the only living thing within twenty-five meters.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, Adrian Cousland is standing on churned, ash-coated earth, her shaking arms barely holding her up as they clutch at the cart’s drawbar. They must have stripped her of her armor when she lost consciousness, though she’s not sure how they could have missed the fact that she was still breathing—the only article of clothing left to her is the now-tattered material of her smalls, which is just scarcely covering her hips and the important parts in between. She won’t look, she decides, until she’s somewhere safer. Knowing would just make it worse.  
  
She shivers in the autumn air—the heat of the bonfires sweeping downwind comes in blasts, sometimes too hot, bringing with it always the smell of burning flesh and hair. If the fires are still going, there must be guards about, supervising the process.  
  
Her sluggish mind works through the possibilities. The castle, blasted with soot, is seated on the hill directly to the north of the ditch, looming impressive and bold against the paling morning light. It can’t have been more than three hours after the initial siege, since the sun hasn’t fully risen yet. A road that leads to one of the branches of the Imperial Highway is accessible directly to the south of Highever. If she can make it that far, and by the Maker’s grace, find some sort of transportation, she can take the Highway directly east to Denerim. The city is bursting with people—having ‘died,’ she assumes, will help with going unnoticed.  
  
That is, providing she survives that long. Her legs feel like straw, and breathing is difficult. She will have to find clothes. And a horse.  
  
Hobbling along on bare, raw feet, she makes her way to the other side. Out of the corner of her eye she can see a head of red hair, lolled over the edge of the cart, and she forces herself not to look. Knowing would just make it worse.  
  
She takes a step, wincing when a cut on her sole tears open. There is no other way but forward. She keeps walking, counting the carts as she passes them, but never stopping to look too long. One, two, three. Four and five. Six and seven are side-by-side near an old oak tree with a discolored trunk; around the back and near the top of one of its lowest branches is a scribbled heart, a messily-carved dedication (RG and AC, they’d written, believing it’d last them forever). Eight is half-empty. This can’t be all of them. Where are the rest?  
  
No. No good. Knowing would just make it worse.  
  
A gigantic iron cage sits up ahead, but view of it besides the top is blocked; it’s nestled against the side of a stack of crates, marked with the Cousland family heraldry. Supplies? Cargo? Food? Why would they burn these? Is Howe truly that petty?  
  
She gets her answer when a voice floats to her over the crest of the ditch.  
  
“Arl said we can take whatever we want.”  
  
A higher, more nasally tone this time—a different man. “That’s Teyrn now, you lackwit. And you’re not getting anything until we deal with the hounds.”  
  
There’s a nervous pause. “Maker knows how he expects us to do that. I’m not lifting that cage latch.”  
  
“You really are a bloody idiot, aren’t you? We just have to pour oil inside. Add one torch. Problem solved. They’ll die sooner or later.”  
  
A scoff. “Of course, you’ve got it figured out. Why are you stuck down here with stupid old me if you’re so brilliant, Mal? Shouldn’t you be up in the castle doing important, smartarse things?”  
  
“Suck a cock,” the man she now knows as Mal says in prompt reply, while the other laughs.  
  
“Maybe I will. Shall I start with yours?”  
  
“Sod off and finish your fucking victuals before I decide to give you a turn at the pyres as well,” Mal snaps, and silence falls again. She hears the click of wood on wood, and the creak of tankards. They’re occupied, then. She thinks she now knows what the cage is for.  
  
Creeping with all the grace that can be expected of someone half-dead, she circles the crates to come to the front of the whole pile, leaving her with a clear sightline on the contents of the cage: the castle’s prized mabari, piled on one another like worthless vermin, cramped together on the dirty floor, some sleeping, some looking out with intelligent, dark eyes. She reckons there are about ten or a dozen in all—far, far less than what the full kennels boasted at their prime, these must be last night’s survivors—and as she approaches, one of them lifts its head, catching her with a piercing gaze.  
  
His grey-black hide is covered in muck and crusted blood, and there is a cut on his withers that’s deep enough that she can see the muscle moving underneath, but she would recognize this dog anywhere—she first fished him out of a woven basket on her tenth birthday, and he’d chewed through the green ribbon Papa had wound around his tiny neck. He’s alive, the same as her, wounded, scarred, but alive. She hasn’t lost everything. Her eyes sting, and she reaches out to thread a hand through the squares created by the cage’s bars. She curls her fingers around his snout as he licks at her palm, pressing the velvet of his nose to her skin. Dear Maker, blessed Andraste—thank you.  
  
She tries to whisper his name—Carrick—but what emerges from her is a croaking rasp that trails off into a wheeze. Her body is blazing with pain, and she slips her free hand over her clavicle, only to recoil in agony. Her nails catch on the laceration there, setting the line that’s been drawn across her throat, ear to ear. How is she still breathing? She should have died, drowning in her own blood, long ago. She wishes she had a mirror.  
  
(Knowing would just make it worse.)  
  
By now the other mabari in the cage are stirring, coming to their feet, observing her, every one of them completely silent. Clever enough to speak, wise enough to know not to. She knows their names, reciting them in her head like a list—Moira, Calenhad, Elethea, Eadig, Prince, Soren, Sybil—and so many more. Papa raised them all, fed them and trained them and let her sit in the middle of a rabble of affectionate dogs on afternoons that the lessons got to be too much. She loves them, like she loves those now lying in the carts, burning to coal on the pyres, the ones that were struck down where they stood and slept and worked. She has to get out. If their memory is going to mean anything, she has to get out.  
  
Cousland mabari are some of the most finely-bred dogs in Ferelden. The lineage goes back to the days when Highever was almost an independent state, free from the rule of the king, and there has always been a hound in the family. Their line will not die here.  
  
She nudges the latch up and away, letting the door swing open. The dogs pad out, nearly in single file, but only Carrick remains by her even as the others turn their attention to the hillock. Papa has made sure that their training extended to hand signs and physical cues. They are as ready and able to defend their home as any human. With them at her back, she staggers up the incline, pebbles and dirt digging into her open cuts. The men she listened to now have appearances: one stocky, snub-faced, and the other painfully average, with skin so freckled that it looks sun-browned at a distance. There are no other guards in sight, and the yards of her castle home are far, far from here.  
  
The freckled man reaches for a pint resting on a low box at his right, and upon finding it empty, turns to take up the flask sitting at his back. He freezes at the sight of her, jaw slackening. What looks like stew trickles out between his lips.  
  
She must be a sight, unclothed, filthy, wild-eyed, covered in patches of dried and drying blood, with mabari at her heels and sides. He drops his bowl with a clatter and reaches over to shove his companion’s knee.  
  
“Not now, Derrin,” snub-face hisses. He must be Mal.  
  
“Mal. Mal.”  
  
Mal lifts his head, expression contorted with rage. “What?!”  
  
And then he sees.  
  
“She’s supposed to be dead,” Derrin says, almost whining.  
  
Carrick pulls his lips back to reveal a row of glimmering teeth, growling from deep in the throat, pressing his flank against her calf. He is warm and solid, real. She doesn’t remember everything of last night, but she knows he was with her, protecting her to the last, before she was seized and slashed and Mother howled with fury. She knows in her heart of hearts that Mama and Papa are both gone, like the others. Gone forever. Just as these two are about to be. She raises a tired hand, and around her the hounds tense.  
  
“Stop,” Mal says, but the sound of his voice only makes Elethea, the bay matriarch, snap her jaws. The action makes something snap in the rest, and suddenly they are seething, snarling and advancing.  
  
Derrin leaps to his feet, his face pale as a sheet. Barking erupts, the chorus rising above the crackling of the flames.  
  
“Please,” Derrin whimpers. “We were just following orders.”  
  
Even if she could speak, she wouldn’t. Her hand drops, and the dogs surge forward.

 

* * *

  
  
**ii.**

 

The mangled remains of the guards yield some important things.  
  
Poultices. A cloak. Honeyed fruits, secreted in a pouch. Brandy in a flask. A gourd of water. She finishes their leftovers while the pack wanders, their muzzles and chests stained red. Swallowing is difficult at first, and breathing is still challenging, but she has few problems getting food down. She supposes whoever did the slitting was inexperienced at the art; neither of her arteries were touched, and only one of her veins was nicked, and it must have stopped bleeding on its own after a while. The dizziness fades with her consuming the stew, and she looks around the lonely clearing.  
  
No one but Derrin and Mal were around, and neither of them had been adequately armed or vigilant. They’d barely been armored, either. Mabari tear through leather like a knife through butter. She supposes no one expects the dead to come back to life. They must have regretted their boring duty, tending to the fires and sorting through the clothes of the deceased.  
  
She leaves them where they’re lying, heaps of mutilated flesh, and rifles through the crates. She finds her mother’s shortbow, signet ring, and the family shield, covered in canvas. The longsword is there, too. She takes them both, setting them aside while she scavenges for something to wear. The cloak will not suffice. Her search is rewarded with a tunic and breeches, and a pair of slightly overlarge boots. The sleeves of the tunic hide the mess of her arms. She tucks the matted disaster that is her hair under the fur-rimmed hood of the tunic and moves slowly to fasten the accompanying leather vest. It’s a little tight around the chest, but nothing impossible. Considering she scrounged everything together, the fit is admirable.  
  
Carrick pads in her footsteps as she meanders over to to the stakes hammered into the ground just north of what was the guards’ lunch spot. There are no horses around the first three sets of stakes she comes across, but at the fourth, a black gelding is grazing at the scarce grass, fully-tacked, his reins tied to a makeshift stall. He flicks an ear at her as she comes closer, and doesn’t react at in the least when she loosens the reins and leads him by the bridle over to the supply crates.  
  
She stuffs an empty pouch with as many preservable rations as she can find. Hard cheeses, dried meat. There isn’t much left. It’ll have to do.  
  
The mabari have retreated from the clearing, receding into the forest. She can’t do anything for them—they probably know so. She’s soothed the wounds she could, rubbing poultice onto cuts and scrapes, bandaging Carrick’s withers as best she could with strips of linen, but she cannot feed them, much less sustain them on a journey toward Denerim. She is sad to see them go, fading like ghosts into the hazy early morning gloom. Perhaps when she sets her world straight again, she will return for them.  
  
It takes three tries to haul herself into the saddle, and upon her success she lies panting against the gelding’s neck, crying tears of exhausted frustration into his silky mane.  
  
She allows herself only action. Thought, substance, meaning; those will destroy her. She doesn’t need to divine the meaning behind having to leave. She just has to.  
  
The gelding walks leisurely down the path, not slowing until they come to a crossroads. The way west leads to Highever. If she closes her eyes, she can see the high rise of the main gates. The drawbridge. The tall parapets and the proud towers. She is abandoning them all.  
  
She urges the gelding east.  
  


* * *

  
  
**iii.**

 

She lasts half a week.  
  
Sometime during the evening of the fifth day, she wobbles on her way to mount the saddle and collapses, back-down, in the cold mud outside the roadside inn. It’s a small place, called The Stowaway, manned by an aging couple and their granddaughter, all of which swarm her when her strength fails her.  
  
They carry her inside. The lantern-light and muted colors of the inn blur together. She hears the concerned mingle of their voices, Carrick whining.  
  
“Right mess, she is. Ana, stable the horse. We’re taking her up to the guest room.”  
  
“Nana, look at her neck…”  
  
“Go, girl. Go!”  
  
She fades in and out of awareness, lingering on the edge of waking, kept there by pain and memory.  
  
( _Over and over, she breaks down the door to Fergus’ bedchambers. Over and over, she comes up against the sight of little broken Oren, lying twisted and dead in Oriana’s sheltering arms, the moonlight washing them both in silver._  
  
_“Monsters,” Eleanor sobs, brushing the hair from Oren’s scarlet-smudged forehead. “Monsters. I’ll kill them all.”_  
  
_Over and over, she finds herself in the dark pantry, the air thick with the coppery scent of Papa’s blood. She holds his hand as his skin chills. The soldiers always rush in, Howe sauntering in after them, smug and triumphant and leering, his eyes bulging with badly-contained bloodlust. The brawl breaks out. She lurches from her position to behead a soldier, and Eleanor puts an arrow through the eye of another._  
  
_On it goes, and she fells man after man, until she nor Eleanor can fight any longer and they scrabble at the soldiers uselessly, slipping in the gore. It takes four men to lock Carrick out of the pantry. She is always torn away from them, Mama and Papa, and she feels the dagger of the footman pressed up against her back digging into her throat._  
  
_Eleanor rails at her captors. “Don’t you touch her!”_  
  
_“Kiss the ground and I may reconsider giving her a quick death,” Howe sneers, glaring over at her with a scowl. “Your perfect little princess, much too good for anyone, now at my mercy. How tragic.”_  
  
_Bryce’s breath rattles, blood bubbling between his lips. “Maker curse you. Traitor.”_  
  
_Howe laughs, the sound echoing tinny in the pantry. “The Maker isn’t here, Cousland.” He nods at the man holding her, sharp and quick._  
  
_The dagger slides to the side, and she’s discarded, left to drown on her side as fire erupts across her skin. She hears Eleanor scream, pitched high with anger and grief, and a scuffle begins when Mama tries to reach her. Outside, Carrick scrabbles at the door, howling._  
  
_“No! No!”_  
  
_She tries to speak, but what emerges is a wet gurgle, so she attempts to say it through her expression—it isn’t your fault. It isn’t your fault. Papa is gazing over at her, tears streaming down his cheeks, his blue-green eyes alight with sorrow. The hand she moves to try and touch the toe of his boot with is crushed underfoot, the bones whining beneath Howe’s heel. Without a voice, she cannot shriek, but the convulsion of pain is just the same._  
  
_“Let her go!”_  
  
_“Enjoy the show,” Howe says, grinding down on her knuckles. “And for the love of Andraste—someone shut that mongrel up.”)_

 

* * *

  
  
**iv.**

  
  
**“** A healer and her templar escort from the Marches were staying at the inn. They nursed me back to health,” she finishes in a rasp, draining her mug of the last dregs of ale. Carrick whines, resting his chin on her boot. “Took a while.”  
  
Hunter’s Fell is a far cry from the plush luxuries that the Gnawed Noble has to offer, but it does well enough—besides, the Noble is swarming with people who would recognize her, and she’s not keen on that happening just yet. In the low light of the tavern, the Warden’s irises are almost black, pupils blown wide, following her every move with a clinical interest Adrian is more used to seeing on birds of prey. She’s a small woman, and probably wouldn’t even reach Fergus’ shoulder if they stood side-to-side.  
  
Adrian hadn’t completely believed that she would accept the invitation to meet, though she supposes they’re both in the same position of having to ask for help, no matter where it comes from.  
  
Mahariel isn’t alone, of _course_. Adrian’s side of the table is conspicuously bare—but the Warden is flanked by a fellow elf, tattooed as well, a handsome man with brown skin and hair the color of honey. He smiles easily enough, and has had more than one smart remark to make. The front doesn’t fool her. He’s as dangerous as they come. On the other side sits the sour-faced woman with cat-yellow eyes. She must know her attire screams _apostate, maleficar, please arrest me!_ The cruelly gnarled yew staff on her back does not help matters. She introduced herself tersely, in the beginning, and has been silent since.  
  
And not even seated, looming by the entrance of the near-deserted tavern, overlooking the proceedings with an almost protective intensity, is a massive—and hornless—qunari. He dwarfs the door by half a meter or more, and had to duck to get inside. He was introduced by the Warden, and has not approached where they’re seated—she’s not sure whether she should be relieved or saddened. He is, after all, the first of his kind she has ever seen.  
  
“It was brave of you to come to Denerim,” Adrian says, drumming her fingers on the table. Her attention lingers on the burnished uniform Mahariel is wearing, silver and blue and most obviously Warden-affiliated. “The regent has put quite the price on your head.”  
  
“There are things you cannot find in the wild,” Mahariel answers, taking a sip from her own mug. “And we had business in Denerim. If the regent thinks he can capture me, he’s welcome to try.”  
  
Adrian’s brows climb upward. “Bold words.”  
  
“Believe me, dear lady,” the elven man—Zevran—interjects, leaning over the table conspiratorially, “she can back them up. I have stories, if you’re interested.”  
  
Mahariel actually rolls her eyes, though a small smile is curling her lips. “That aside, I’m not quite sure what you want from me,” she continues, crossing one leg over the other. Her boots are exquisitely made, thigh-high, dark doeskin with beautiful stitching. “Storming into the Royal Palace and slaughtering Howe and his men is not something that is presently feasible. Sadly.”  
  
“It will be, if you achieve your goals,” Adrian remarks. “Though that’s not all I’m after.”  
  
Mahariel steeples her gloved fingers, pretty face full of interest. “I’m listening.”  
  
“I have more than a few connections and friends here in Denerim,” Adrian begins, tracing a deep gouge on the wooden table with a nail. “Good friends who trusted my father, who in turn trusted Fergus and I. Noblemen and women who would be more than happy to pledge their troops to your cause once you declare your intent. There has been talk of reconvening a Landsmeet. My support would be invaluable. I know the Queen personally.”  
  
“And what do you propose to do until then?”  
  
“In an ideal world, accompany you,” she says, voice cracking. She scowls, and gestures at a passing waitress for a refill. Once she’s drunk more, she goes on. “I could stay here, I suppose. But it seems rather stupid to even consider leaving an able fighter behind, and one who has nothing to gain from turning on you.”  
  
Mahariel smiles faintly, as though she’s amused. “It does, doesn’t it?”  
  
“Oh, spare my patience,” the apostate says, her tone pure poison. “Are we opening an adoption service? Is it in your nature to scoop up every stray and lunatic we shall run afoul of?”  
  
“Pay her no mind, _mia cara_ ,” Zevran interrupts once again. “Morrigan has a strange and endearing way of displaying her loyalty to our ragtag band of vagabonds.”  
  
Morrigan sends him a glare that could curdle milk. And possibly set things on fire. “I do not recall asking for your _input_ , elf.”  
  
He winks at her. “No one ever does.”  
  
“Settle down, children,” Mahariel says in a bored monotone that betrays this isn’t the first time she’s needed to do this. “We wouldn’t be staying in Denerim for long. And the traveling doesn’t suit everyone.”  
  
“I don’t think my resiliency will be an issue,” Adrian drawls, perhaps more belligerently than she would have liked. “I’m well enough to be on the road. Besides, you don’t seem to be suffering from a surplus of heavy fighters.”  
  
“That’s true enough,” Mahariel admits, “though Sten could probably count as an entire battalion, should he so wish.” She nods, the sleek ponytail of her black-brown hair moving with her. “Very well. We will take you with us, after we are finished in the city.”  
  
Even the disgusted noise Morrigan makes cannot stop the excited pounding of Adrian’s heart. “You will not regret it,” she promises. “I—” She has to stop there, coughing, eyes watering at the stretching dryness in her throat and mouth. She hasn’t talked this much in weeks, though she has been sticking to her vocal exercises. She will never sound the way she did before, she thinks. It is good the Warden and her party have no material to compare to.  
  
“It’s alright,” the Warden says. “Take your time.”  
  
She hates having the scrutiny of _both_ the elf and the apostate on her. One is slightly concerned, the other is in open contempt. She draws her cloak closer around her, suddenly self-conscious about the ropy whiteness at her neck. Healing magic, however potent, cannot erase that. She’d seen herself in a mirror at the inn, after the healer had cut away the catastrophe of her dark hair, leaving it barely brushing her shoulders, and tended to her wounds; Eleanor’s bizarre, almost-teal eyes had been staring out at her from the foggy glass. She can see her parents in her reflection—Bryce’s nose and brow, Eleanor’s jaw and freckles. Papa’s smile and Mama’s bone structure.  
  
She doesn’t like mirrors anymore.  
  
“Thank you,” Adrian murmurs at last. She tosses half a handful of silver pieces onto the table to cover the food and drink, and makes to stand. Carrick yawns, stretching out, his stub of a tail wagging. “I’m staying here under the name of Leigh. When you are ready, ask for me.”  
  
“Understood,” Mahariel says. “ _Dareth shiral._ ”  
  
She won’t pretend to know what that means—though it sounds like a farewell. She casts a last look over these people, who are soon going to be a presence in her daily life, and turns to leave.  


* * *

  
  
**v.**  
  
  
Zevran observes as the party retreats to their respective corners after dinner is over.  
  
Morrigan has nowhere to retreat, as she never joined the people at the campfire in the first place. It’s part of her mysterious, unattainable vibe. And also her general hatred for humanity. Alistair and Leliana are seated together off the side of a tent, heads bent and engaged in conversation. Wynne is near them, listening with an amused tilt to her lips—she’s darning the holes in an undershirt. Wonderfully domestic.  
  
The golem is busy being a statue. Sten, seated by his tent, is either intentionally imitating it, or is just that good at unwittingly appearing to be a lifeless hunk of stone. The dwarf is snoring drunkenly, slumped between two wheels of cheese (please, contain your exclamations of shock). The merchant and his boy are still occupied with their own supper, gathered around the tiny fire they’ve built, and the Warden herself is lying lazily on a laid-out pelt, her mabari stretched out beside her as she reads a book she purchased during their earlier jaunt in Denerim.  
  
What interests Zevran most, personally, is the new addition to the party: she’s sitting on the very edge of a log by the little lake at the back of camp, lovingly tending to her longsword. Her own mabari is wandering around, inquisitively sniffing at whatever he finds worthy of his attention—that whatever being Zevran, now. He stops just short of the log, allowing the dog to sniff at his boots, his breeches, and the upturned surface of his palm. The inspection continues for a bit, until the mabari pulls back, staring at him with milky-pale eyes.  
  
“Satisfied?” he asks, smirking. “I have only the best of intentions, I assure you.”  
  
The dog actually lifts a lip at him in a half-snarl not unlike a disapproving expression. He imagines it’s a warning not to push his luck.  
  
“Fine hound,” Zevran compliments, and the young woman gives him a look that plainly says, _what would_ you _know about dogs?_  
  
“He is,” she says anyway, sheathing the longsword and leaning it against her knee.  
  
Her voice is husky, a mismatch for her youthful face. Out of everyone Zevran has met so far, she has the most classically Fereldan set of features he has seen: high cheekbones, eyes green and clear as sea-glass set below strong brows, thick straight hair, a handsome mouth, and a defined jaw. She’s been mostly quiet since they decided to travel together, about a week and a half ago, and in that time, his curiosity about her has only increased. She is diligent, and as fierce a fighter as she vowed she was, though she is still undoubtedly not at full strength—not if the extent of her injuries were what he guessed them to be.  
  
“May I sit?” he asks, and she shrugs, making space for him. He settles down next to her easily, crossing his ankles and sighing. “Beautiful evening, is it not? Brisk.”  
  
“…It is.”  
  
He laughs at the palpable hesitation in her words. “You’re wondering why I’m here.” It isn’t a question, and her expression confirms his statement. “I simply want to get to know you better. We are companions, after all.”  
  
Now the wariness is evident. “Why?”  
  
“Why not?” he counters. “Must I need a reason?”  
  
“There’s always a reason,” she says simply, almost sadly. He recognizes something familiar in that, and is taken aback. “What do you want?”  
  
“Many things,” Zevran answers. “Mostly, just conversation—preferably with someone who won’t look for an excuse to stab me in the back.”  
  
“You just admitted you don’t know me,” Cousland says, resting her hand on Carrick’s head when he flops down at her feet. “How can you be sure I won’t?”  
  
“You don’t seem the type for betrayal,” he remarks, and then immediately wishes he could shove the words back into his mouth and down his throat, into the cursed voicebox they came from. Her expression hardens, like cooling granite, and he knows that for once, he’s said the wrong thing.  
  
“You’re right,” she rasps, her smoky voice warming with irritation. “I’m not.”  
  
“It seems I was too eager,” Zevran says, wincing. “I misspoke. I apologize.”  
  
She wipes a hand down her face. “It’s alright.” She looks away, uncomfortable. “This… is why I don’t talk to anyone. I’m—too angry.”  
  
He truly smiles at her, perhaps less jubilantly than he’d like. “I can assure you, my dear, that I’ve dealt with much worse.”  
  
Cousland rubs at the back of her neck, her expression something between bashful and uncertain. “What… would you want to know?”  
  
The pleasant surprise of hearing her say that washes away the remnants of the nervousness, like it had never been. Maybe he hasn’t completely mucked this up, after all.  
  


* * *

  
  
**postscript.**  
  
  
  
_Almost a year later, Rendon Howe lies bleeding out at her feet, deep in the dungeons of Denerim. His men are dead. He will be, too, and soon. She cut his throat herself._  
  
_The reversal should amuse her, but she feels nothing. There is emptiness in the places of her heart that tragedy has touched. She would be more affected by watching a fly struggle in a spider’s web than by listening to this degenerate’s last words. He’s garbling curses and hateful wishes at her, as though the words could hurt her more than anything he’s already done. Papa died with dignity, no matter how hard Howe tried to take that from him—from them all._  
  
_“I deserved—more,” Howe spits, the weeping wound she gave him gushing crimson. She swats his clawing hand away with the blade of her sword, pinning it under her foot._  
  
_He expects her to retort—she can see it in his desperate, malevolent gaze._  
  
_When at last he is too weak to keep his head lifted, she raises her boot and walks away._  
  
_“Look at me!” he gurgles._  
  
_Adrian moves past the Warden and her companions. “Take what you need,” she says. “I will wait for you outside.”_  
  
_He will rot underground, in the darkness, where he belongs._  
  
_And she will someday, somehow, move on._


End file.
